


Unique Emotions

by ice_hot_13



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 19:34:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/pseuds/ice_hot_13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desmond would tell Shaun everything, but Shaun never asks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unique Emotions

 Desmond always looks forward to the new databased entries. Reading them is like hearing Shaun's voice in his head, sardonic and deadpanning, like he didn't even mean to be funny and this is just his way of being. He can practically feel Shaun beside him when he reads the entries, arms crossed over his chest, shaking his head and saying that all Federico did at his job was dick around, and it was no real surprise that he'd been fired. Shaun is never there, of course, because this is something Desmond can't share with him, and they don't share much of anything, anyways.

Desmond kind of wants to. He gets closer to admitting it to himself every day. He wants to tell Shaun all about everything he sees.

While he's in the Animus, Desmond watches cargo being carried off ships, and a dockworker throws a fish at another and their fistfight falls in the water, and then he sees a man running from a woman throwing strawberries out a window at him, and the whole time, he thinks  _I've got to tell Shaun about this._

He comes back to the room and knows he's been fooling himself. Shaun barely looks up from his computer as Desmond sits up and looks around. Rebecca shuts off the Animus, says something about finding an extension cord for something, and walks out.

"Anything interesting?" Lucy asks, smiling at him from her desk.

"Nice sunrise," he says, because he notices these things for her, so that he'll have something to say when she asks. He never has to look out for things to tell Shaun, because he's always mentally taking notes like it's instinctual. "Over the water. Wish I could show you," he says, because he flirts with her like it's a habit, and she smiles. "If we knew half of what Da Vinci did..." he says, shaking his head, and she laughs, because no one ever could, they've had this discussion many times before.

"I wish I could meet him," she says, "I'm jealous. What's he like?"

"Nice," Desmond says, remembering his ancestor's memory of the blonde artist, "daydreamy. A little high-strung sometimes." Lucy laughs and tells him they'll return to the Animus tomorrow, to get some rest in the meantime.

Desmond sits for a while in silence, watching Shaun from across the room. He can almost hear himself telling Shaun about everything, and it almost compels him to say it.

Just as easily, he can see Shaun giving him a blank look of apathy, so he stays quiet. Half of him waits for Shaun to ask, anything, and if he did, Desmond wouldn't hold anything back. It's almost comforting, to set that ultimatum for himself, but Shaun never asks. Keeping all that to himself isn't easy and some days, it almost hurts, wanting to tell so badly, but Shaun never asks.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Darkness always fills up the room like liquid, and light glows in the corners like they are bubbles around them, to shield them from the dark. Desmond lies on the bed, laptop sitting on the pillow, luminant in the dark. He always wants to hear Shaun talk, but reading his database entries is as close as he ever gets, so he spends most evenings skimming over the entries, priding himself when he finds new sentences. The rythmic sound of typing across the room sounds almost like falling rain, fast and even. Shaun always stays up late, always, and in the beginning, Desmond thought it was because Shaun wanted to talk to him. He was disappointed to realize Shaun only stays awake to work, but still keeps looking for a sign. Shaun has been hurting Desmond for a while now, and Desmond can think of no reason to tell him that. He spends hours in the Animus world that is so starkly without Shaun, but the real world feels no better, because Shaun either ignores him or fights with him, and neither is what Desmond wants. He argues back, hoping to someday shock Shaun into saying something  _real_ to him, but Shaun never does.

Desmond had spent most of the day in the Animus, and Shaun still has yet to speak to him since that morning. In the morning, they argued, and Desmond wishes it was at least something worth debating, but it had just been about whether artists were temperamental. Desmond had said they were- or at least, Da Vinci was, sometimes harping after Ezio about the missions, wanting to know where and why and how and whether he knew how to escape- and Shaun said it wasn't without reason, and Desmond had said Shaun couldn't possibly know what the reason was, and Shaun had told him he was an unsympathetic jerk who couldn't read people, and Desmond had barely been able to stop himself from saying  _you're the one who can't read people, look at what you're missing with me,_ but had only snapped at Shaun for being annoying so early in the morning, and that he'd be a miserable person to live with for real, wouldn't he? He'd been hoping Shaun would reply  _something_ to that, about how previous partners had lived with him, but all he'd done was give Desmond that infuriatingly unreadable glare and said that at least it wasn't forever. Desmond hates fighting with him, but it's the only time Shaun will ever look at him.

Desmond scripts an entire conversation in his head as he tries to read about a church, but he knows he'll never say anything until Shaun does something to show that he doesn't bitterly hate Desmond.

"What're you writing?" he calls out on impulse. The typing stops.

"Database entry," Shaun replies shortly.

"What about?"

"A festival." The response is a brick wall, no way through to the rest of a conversation, and Desmond lapses back into silence, giving up again. Normally, he tries to bully his way past the impenetrable answers and drag a few more words out of Shaun, but tonight, he can't find the energy to do it. He skims the rest of the entry on the church, finds a new sentence that merely adds the name of the architect. Desmond doubts this will ever come in handy to him, but he never tells Shaun when he finds information useless; he lets himself feel like Shaun is helping him so intently because he cares and wants him to be prepared in case he's ever quizzed on the architect's name, and it's comforting, if a lie, to believe that Shaun just wants him to be ready for anything. More likely, Shaun just likes collecting information.

He gives up on reading, just shuts the laptop and buries his head under a pillow. The Animus experience that day had been draining in the worst of ways; Desmond lost himself when he went in. He became Ezio, became him even to the point of falling into his emotions and everything he ever felt, and it was unsettling, becoming another person so entirely. It's like being conscious of having had a past life, like being himself is a memory and being Ezio is reality. When he's in the Animus, he finds himself thinking exactly what Ezio had, alongside his own thoughts in a strange parallel twined by the thread of himself. He wants to ask if this is normal, but can't phrase the question. He doesn't want to ask Rebecca  _am I supposed to feel like I love who Ezio loved, but only when I'm there?_ and doesn't want to ask Shaun what happens later in Ezio's life, because it'd be hard to live with once back in the Animus. He doesn't want to ask Shaun anything about that, because when he's in the Animus, when he's Ezio, he's in love with Leonardo, and he doesn't want to ask because maybe, somehow, Shaun would see that he felt more akin to his ancestor than he would admit aloud. Maybe someday, he'll ask Shaun if Ezio ever kissed Leonardo like he longs to every day, but it would feel too much like asking permission to follow in his footsteps, and Desmond doesn't want to hear Shaun say no.

xxxxxxxxxxx

The rain drowns out the sound of typing in the late afternoon, and the sound hammers through the warehouse, echoing in the emptiness. Both Lucy and Rebecca left in the morning, one for electronics repair and the other for groceries, and they'd been arguing about who would get which when they'd left hours earlier. The sound of the rain is Desmond's only real companion as he sits at the kitchen table, coming down in sheets against the glass. Shaun is in the next room typing, and Desmond had spent a few hopeful hours there, but the cold and silence drove him into the kitchen, where it's warm and the sound of the rain is louder, filling up some of the empty space. Desmond clicks lazily through the database, looking for something to catch his attention.  _Could be worse,_ he thinks, pulling his coffee mug towards him,  _could be in the Animus._ It's not usually so trying, but lately, Ezio has been torn about whether to tell Leonardo how he feels or not, and the self-conscious doubting coming in at Desmond from both reality and the past, crushing down on him, is hard to handle. He hears Shaun's footsteps, but he doesn't come into the kitchen. Desmond clicks through more entries, reading a few about locations and foods and people, and pauses to linger over the entry about Da Vinci. He'd been hoping that, by some miracle, Shaun knew he wanted desperately to know how it all ended up for Leonardo and Ezio, but as he reads through it, he finds only a few more notes about inventions and music. Shaun has added the fact that Da Vinci bought caged birds simply to let them free, and this is something Desmond already knows, because Ezio thinks about it sometimes, mostly when on top of rooftops waiting for movement, when his thoughts drift to the artist, again. At the end of the entry is another new addition.

_He worries when Ezio is out completing missions, and the helpless feeling of being far from him and powerless to help both saddens and frustrates him; it would be easier if Ezio were actually his, because justifying his emotions to himself is a depressing task._

"It's not decaf, is it?" Shaun's voice makes Desmond look up sharply. Shaun is examining the coffee pot as if he can tell whether it is caffeinated or not based on sight alone; he looks more exhausted than usual, as he runs a hand through his dark hair and attempts to straighten his rumpled button-up shirt.

"No. Regular." Desmond looks back at the screen, then over at Shaun again. Shaun takes off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. "You read minds now?" he says, and this is completely the wrong thing to say, but he doesn't want to sound like he falls over anything Shaun says and believes anything. He does, of course he does, but telling Shaun that without finding out anything in exchange would be degrading. He doesn't know anything about Shaun, except that he's from somewhere that gave him an accent and doesn't like Desmond too much.

"What gave you that idea?" Shaun frowns at him; Desmond can count on one hand the number of times Shaun has smiled at him. Once, when they first met. It didn't last long. Something had changed on Shaun's face and he'd turned away, and Desmond was just glad he'd been given the memory.

"Your insight into Da Vinci's inner thoughts," Desmond says, gesturing loosely to the screen. Shaun shrugs a shoulder, and that isn't an answer, not enough. "How do you know this?"

"I just do. Don't you trust me?" He walks away before Desmond can say no and offend Shaun or say yes and hurt himself, and Desmond hates that Shaun controls even that.

"You can't know what he feels," he shouts over his shoulder at Shaun's retreating back, "he's not even alive."

"No one's emotions are unique," Shaun replies, rather snappish. "You know how Ezio feels, don't you?"

"That's different," Desmond says, almost too quickly, "I become him. You don't know anything about how anyone else feels."

Shaun says nothing, and when Desmond turns around, he's gone.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Desmond knows he's too easily affected. He wishes he wasn't so susceptible, but wishing doesn't change anything, and when he's taken out of the Animus, he's still panicked and on edge like Ezio had been, because he almost lost Leonardo. His assassination target had spun the rules around and gone after Ezio's raison d'etre. Had barely a breath been wasted, Leonardo would have died at the hands of the man Ezio had been meant to assassinate. Ezio had stabbed the man and pulled Leonardo into his arms, kissed him without a second thought, saying over and over,  _I almost lost you, I almost lost you._  Leonardo, strong until then, had broken down and cried and kissed him back.

"You okay?" Rebecca asks when he stays silent, rubbing a hand over his face and sighing.

"Yeah. Fine." He's not, not at all, but she accepts this and leaves for lunch. He puts his head in his hands, drawing in a breath to steady himself. Ezio's relief had been a flood, and pulling Leonardo into his arms had been like learning that the world was going to go on past today, but before that, all he'd felt was terror. Desmond had felt him being ripped apart by the screaming fear that Leonardo was going to die, all Ezio's fault, and that howling heartbreak still resounded in Desmond's chest, threatening to crush him.

"You don't look okay," Shaun says, walking across the room. Desmond shrugs. "What happened?"

"Leonardo almost got killed," Desmond can hear how hollow his voice sounds, "it was-" he breaks off. "I'm fine." He looks up at Shaun, feels anything but fine, the farthest thing from it, like he's still about to be ripped apart by the agony of losing  _him._ "Ezio almost lost him," he says, more to himself than Shaun, as he stands. "I felt it. You were right about Leonardo. Like you'd gotten inside his head." He studies Shaun's face for a moment, tries to imagine losing him, and it's easy because he already knows how it feels, easy to imagine what it'll be like, and it hurts more than anything imaginable, and it'll be  _worse_ than that, because it won't be someone else losing their love, it'll be  _him_ losing  _Shaun._

"Do you still want to know how I know?" Shaun asks, and that's it, that's all Desmond needed him to ask, because not telling him hurts, and not telling him will make losing him harder, should that day ever come. He doesn't want to lose him without having him. "You don't look okay," Shaun says again, frowning at him like always because Desmond's shoulders are slumped and he's quiet and he can't find any of the fight he usually has in him.

"I'm not," he admits, tensed against the urge to pull Shaun close, just to make sure he's still here, "I felt it, what Ezio felt when he almost lost Leonardo. It was damn scary, you know that? So, no. I'm not."

"Bleeding effect," Shaun says, and Desmond doesn't even know what that means anymore. It seems to be their fallback explanation, whenever he so strongly parallels his ancestors. He doesn't beleive it anymore. Like Shaun said, no emotions are unique.

"No. Not that," He clenches his jaw and looks away, then back, like Shaun is magnetic, like he's the only thing left in the world, "It might be you someday."

Desmond is scared that he broke Shaun somehow, because Shaun falls apart, covering his face in his hands and trembling with the effort to keep back sobs. It's instinctual, as he pulls Shaun into his arms and holds him tight, feels Shaun's heartbeat slamming up against his like they're both coming onto the same frequency.

"It already is you," he says, and Desmond doesn't understand. Shaun sniffles in the effort to keep away tears, clutching at Desmond hard like Desmond somehow pulled out all the supports from under him, and Desmond hadn't meant to, not at all. "Why do you do this? Suddenly come back understanding?"

"That's a bad thing?" He feels left behind, somehow, like he hurt Shaun without knowing it. It scares him, to see the sharp-tongued historian in pieces.

"I don't know. You tell me. You know how Ezio felt, don't you?" He steps back, pushing the heels of his hands against his eyes and hunching his shoulders, and Desmond aches with the need to hold him again.

"Of course I felt it. I was him," he says, and then he understands, understand why suddenly seeming to understand would hurt so deeply, understands because Shaun thinks he knows how it feels because Ezio does, with no connection to himself. "I get it because it'd be the same if something happened to you," he says.

You can't know how he feels, he hears himself saying, as rain had pounded against the windows, and it tears his heart open. You feel the same way, he realizes too late, because Shaun hid it so well, he'd thought, but really, it was because he didn't know how to look for it. He'd thought it'd show itself the same way Ezio had seen Leonardo show it, but Shaun was different, his emotions were different.

Desmond doesn't let himself think anymore. He eases Shaun close and kisses him, soft and gentle, and Shaun falls against him.

"You were wrong," he says once they pull apart, breathing into each other's faces and still in some form of pleasant shock.

"I'm never wrong." The bitterness is gone from Shaun's voice, stubbornness without anger, and it's everything Desmond never knew Shaun was.

 _You were wrong. Emotions are unique_ , Desmond thinks, but he just kisses Shaun again and doesn't tell him, because Shaun already knows.

"The bleeding effect. That's not why it scared the hell out of me," he says, and Shaun just shakes his head.

"I know."

"You didn't know that then."

"So what? Maybe I did. Reading minds and all that."

"You can't do that."

"Yes I can. Want proof?"

"Yeah." He's almost distracted as Shaun kisses along his neck, blanking out all coherent thought for a moment.

"You want to ask me how everything turns out for Ezio and Leonardo, don't you?" This makes Desmond's eyes widen in surprise. "Same way it turns out for us."

"You can't know that already," Desmond protests, but there's no conviction. It feels like a test, as Shaun watches him, eyes filled with knowing and waiting for Desmond to reply. "I'm glad," he says, thinking back to the way Ezio held Leonardo, "they deserve to be happy."

Shaun smiles at him, and it's the first time Desmond has ever given him an answer instead of the other way around. It feels a little like the way Ezio felt when he helped Leonardo with a painting once, but a little different, too. Different because this is Shaun and this is him, and no one in the world has every been exactly like they are now.

Desmond is thankful for that. He doesn't want to share the way this feels, but at the same time, he hopes some future descendant will relive this memory, and that he'll feel the same exact way Desmond feels now. Maybe his future descendant will learn something from them and change it in the same way they have so its theirs alone.

No one in the world has every been exactly like they are now, and no one ever will again, but there are enough different ways to make it unique to last for the rest of time. Counting different ways is like counting stars, it's like counting across the sky and falling asleep before getting very far, and that night, when Desmond falls asleep with Shaun in his arms, he tries to count the ways he feels different with Shaun than Ezio did with Leonardo, and wakes Shaun up after he gets to fifty-six and starts to worry that there's nothing holding anything together anymore.

"I love you," he whispers, and Shaun smiles at him, already more times than he could count, and Desmond realizes he's found the one thing that's shared.

"I love you too," Shaun murmurs sleepily, and it's the night sky that holds up all the innumerable stars.

 

 


End file.
